I had 4 hours, including drive time, to work with - I dropped Forest off at daycare at 8AM, but needed to pick him up at 12pm. I've been on a kick recently of pushing myself a little more than I have previously, so I decided to tackle a Bee Canyon loop I had in mind right nearby in the Santa Susannas. It was rather ambitious for the time allotted, but the trailhead was a quick 18-minute drive from Fo's daycare, so I would only burn 40 minutes not hiking.
To fulfill responsible parenthood, I would need to make this 6 mile mostly cross country scramble in about 3 hours. I found having the deadline exhilarating.
As a lifelong peak bagger, I've traditionally held ridges and peaks as my targets, but the route today was inspired by explorers like carl swindle, who often use canyons and tributaries as their points of interest. Its an inversion of my usual mindset, but the more I explore around Los Angeles the more I have come to love the experience of working my way up a canyon, particularly one with flowing water. And particularly on a hot summer day where the shade can make all the difference.
Searching the archives, the prolific David R unsurprisingly has explored up Bee Canyon. viewtopic.php?p=50401&hilit=Bee+Canyon#p50401 And despite the Saddle Ridge fire having come through in 2019, what I found in 2024 was not very different from what David described 10 years earlier. I *think* I made it further up than he did? Not positive.
With the clock ticking, I first zoomed through O'Melveney park past the morning exercisers, approaching the mouth of the canyon.
The Bee Canyon Trail, although most maps indicate extending a mile or so up the canyon, quickly disintegrated, which was of little surprise. For a time I attempted to keep my feet dry and try to trace it, but I quickly realized I was expelling unnecessary effort in doing so and the smarter play was to stop delaying the inevitable and just plunge into the little stream itself, following its winding course and embracing wet feet.
The vegetation was plentiful. I was traipsing up a green tunnel with water flowing through it.
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The riparian jungle only grew more thick, and often the hardest obstacles were blow-downs that had sprouted new branches. And with my deadline I was moving fast, too, very much ducking and weaving and crashing. LOTS of poison oak and stinging nettles, and in a lapse of judgement I was wearing short sleeves. Coming upon an obstacle like what you see below, I was inspired to coin a new bushwhackers motto: "If you ain't crawling you're stalling!" ...and so on my hands and knees I would go.
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I came upon a small waterfall where the stream poured over the smooth miocene-era Modelo formation sandstone. It was lovely and I immersed my head into it. This could be what Tom Kenney described that the trail once lead to. Any trail has long since been obliterated.
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As the canyon narrowed further up, the blowdowns fallen from the steep slopes on either side became increasingly difficult to crawl through.
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I eventually reached my planned exit point, but missed the tributary I was supposed to follow and slightly overshot. I decided to just scramble up the steep slope to the west, seeing daylight above. This was class 3 for sure with much grasping onto shrubs and grasses to pull myself up. I entertained fantasies the sunlight at the top meant some sort of path, but it wasn't that at all - a narrow narrow ridge between tributaries with impassable drop-offs on either side, but thankfully a rough but navigable route up along the knife-edge. From there a view of the canyon I had come up came into view.
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This narrow ridge became choked with a small yellow wildflower I had to wade through up to my waste, but it didn't stop me. The clock continued to tick, no time to rest. Up and up I had to go.
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I eventually emerged onto an old road of some kind that I had spotted from Google Earth. Being 10:30 now I had about an hour of hike time left. With the difficult scrambling behind me, it was now time to enable turbo mode as much as the increasingly hot sun would allow me! And I still had more elevation gain to go before I made the East Canyon trail and could actually start working my way back to the San Fernando Valley and my car.
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After more climbing but pretty easy going on the old road, I reached the East Canyon trail with its sweeping views over Bee Canyon and the western San Gabriels. Can you name the peaks in the misty distance?
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I moved fast now, even jogging some of the downhill bits. (Forest I'm coming for you!!!) I sped past the elaborate iron fencing surrounding the oil and natural gas drilling operations that dominate the south slopes of Oat Mountain.
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The only trail down from Mission Point I hadn't done before was "Dean's Rocky Way" that plunged strait to my trailhead. Being over landslide deposits, it wasn't all that rocky but was overgrown and rarely used until the very end, which steeply descended off of point 1842 in a last push to my finish line. With how fast I was moving the footwork was tricky over the exposed sandstone, but I got to my car by 11:40 with my ankles intact!
With no time to spare, I made it to Forest's daycare again to pick him up at nap time, covered in dirt, sweat, urushiol oils and stinging nettle scratches. If Fo's teacher was concerned, she was very polite about it!
I took Forest to Dunkin Donuts for a celebratory donut and iced coffee before home and a shower. I had won at both parenting and mountain pirating for the morning.
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5.77 miles, 2279ft elevation gain.
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